healthykids
KIDS CLUBS GREEN Highlighting Hope for the Future by Brian Clark Howard
The goals of green kids clubs range from benchmarking environmental progress to fundraising for local eco-causes. The kids not only have fun, they feel empowered to make a difference in a scarred and scary world.
G
reen clubs attract youth of many ages. In Needham, Massachusetts, elementary school students formed a Safe Routes to School Green Kids Newman Club and promoted the concept of the Walking School Bus to help classmates walk safely to school as a group. “We started this group because we wanted more kids to walk,” Maya, a fourth-grader, explained to local journalists. They even made and posted appealing safety signs throughout the community. Stephen, another fourth-grader, said: “I feel like it’s doing something for the world. It’s teach- ing people to be safe, try and walk and try to save the Earth.” Students from New York City Public School 334, the
Anderson School, organized a Power Patrol this year. “The kids would go around the school unplugging unused appli- ances, turning off lights and taking meter readings, so they could see how much they could bring down electricity use,” says Pamela French, a mother and school volunteer who is working on a documentary film about how the Big Apple’s schools can go greener. The students also participated in the citywide student-driven energy competition, the Green Cup Challenge, sponsored by The Green Schools Alliance. Another school initiative, Trash Troopers, had students monitoring their cafeteria’s recycling bins, ensuring that diners
34 New Haven / Middlesex
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properly sort milk cartons from compostable items. “They par- ticularly like painting monsters on recycling bins,” says French. At St. Philip the Apostle School, in Addison, Illinois,
three middle school students founded Recycle Because You Care to encourage recycling by the larger community. The teens distribute recycling bins and show residents how to properly use them. A few years ago, students at Westerly Middle School, in Rhode Island, decided to do something about global warm-
All student project photos are used with permission.
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